


The Relics Of Fort Hagen

by softly_speaking_valkyrie



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Action, Combat, F/F, Firefight, Gay, Kissing, Lesbians, Mild Plot, Sapphic, Women Loving Women, wlw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 12:25:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14954666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softly_speaking_valkyrie/pseuds/softly_speaking_valkyrie
Summary: Fort Hagen holds a place in Nora’s memory, it is where she killed Kellogg while looking for Shaun. Now the Fort has been taken up by a new faction – Super Mutants. Brokering a delicate and temporary alliance with Preston’s Minutemen and the remnants of the Brotherhood chapter under Danse’s command, Nora leads her life partner Curie and her allies to Fort Hagen to kick the Mutants out. What none of them know is that Fort Hagen is a storage site for something that could wreak havoc across the entire Commonwealth, and enable the Super Mutants to change the shape of the ruined United States…





	The Relics Of Fort Hagen

The Mutants had taken up residence in the fort after Nora and Preston had previously cleared the place and killed Kellogg deep within, ridding the old military base of all the Gen 1 and 2 Synths the Institute had there to protect him. Ever since then the station had been desolately quiet and peaceful. Preston had been sure to keep a regular patrol coming and going from Sanctuary to keep an eye on the Fort every three days, looking for signs and tells if the place had been taken over again.

Nora and Preston, in a loose alliance with Danse and what little of the Brother of Steel fascists remained in the Commonwealth, had expected Raiders or the Gunners to take up refuge in the Fort, to turn it into a base for their enterprise, at which point the Minutemen would assemble and device a plan to conquer the place again. After the second time, something would have been needed to be done. The Minutemen would then take Fort Hagen and try to supply it with their own ranks to make sure the defences of it could not fall into the wrong hands. Nora told them they needed to keep the Fort theirs, secure, or else she was going to give it to the Railroad. Although with C. I. T utterly destroyed, the Railroad was becoming even more of a purposeless organisation and was thinking of moving on and into the Capital Wasteland of the remains of Pennsylvania.

Why the Super Mutant population had seemed to swarm around the remains of Fort Hagen had been a mystery to all who had discussed it. Nora had brokered a fragile pact between herself (along with all her band that were still settled in Vault 88), the Minutemen under the commander of Preston Garvey (bolstered by his numbered at The Fort) and Danse and what was left of the chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel (after Nora had demanded they leave the Commonwealth).

They were camped out just beyond the perimeter of Fort Hagen, Nora outside of her tent with Curie, cherishing what little peace they would be having before someone came to her with more details. They were waiting the Mutants out, seeing what they were going to do and what their movements were. After a solid day of stalking the thing with the full force of over thirty men and women, they had seen very little in terms of a routine from the gathered Mutants. There lay a wireless on a table near the camp, keeping the tunes of Diamond City Radio up and allowing the settlers now turned troops to remain in high spirits. The tensions between the Minutemen and the Brotherhood Knights were dissolving enough, the Knights still despised Nora however for destroying the Prydwen and ending their campaign in the Commonwealth. At least their Maxson was still alive, escaped back to the Capital Wasteland.

“Lay that pistol babe, lay that pistol. Pistol-packin' mama, lay that pistol down…”

Nora dipped the ladle into the Yao Guai Broth she’d been preparing as Curie smiled at her across the fire and pit. “You’re enjoying this? All these people coming in and preparing to attack the Mutants. All on your orders…” Curie mused, leering at Nora as she tasted the soup, grimacing and adding some salt and some more carrots and crispy squirrel bits to it upon tasting the bitterness.

The Sole Survivor grinned back at Curie, admiring the femme fatale features of her Synth body. They’d been through the ringer to get that model of Synth to transfer Curie into from her old Miss Nanny chassis. The transformation was perfect and ever since seeing and experiencing the artificial intelligence in the physical realm, seeing her become a humanoid entity, learning what it meant to be human too, it was was gorgeous. Sometimes Nora felt a little strange that she was romantically and physically involved with a woman who had not started her existence as a person. But each time Nora held Curie close and sat with her, talked to her, kissed her, she remembered that the New World was full of impossible and strange things and that she was perfectly happy with Curie as she was, and being with her as she was. How odd it was that her Synth form complimented her faux Parisian accent. She looked belonging to France in a strange way.

A soft chuckle left Nora as she let the soup boil some more for them. “You know, I do kinda like having all the power in the Commonwealth, feels kinda good,” she discussed, sitting back in her chair.

She did enjoy it, the fame and the standing between all the factions while maintaining her own separate existence with her companions. Curie was her love, her everything, her life partner, but there was Piper, Cait, Strong (her own personal battering ram who had elected to remain out of this affair), Dogmeat, Hancock while he ruled Goodneighbour, MacCready, who was wandering the wasteland in search of more work and caps. Preston was a dear friend but he had to be general for the Minutemen since Nora would have no part in commanding an army. Deacon had moved on with the majority of the Railroad, chasing the Institute into the rest of the ruins of the US. Danse remained with the Brotherhood, in such a toxic position Nora felt sorry for him. Maxson knew he was a Synth, Nora, too, but the rest of the chapter was in the dark. Before blowing up the Prydwen and kicking the Brotherhood thoroughly out of the Commonwealth for good, Nora had confronted the Elder and managed to persuade him to allow Danse to stay, and to keep his origins from the rest of the Knights. Danse was with his brothers and sisters still, but Maxson knew exactly what he was. It was horrible.

It was good to see him here, ready to join her in the battle against the Mutants in the Fort.

“Just don’t let it all go to your head, my love,” Curie chuckled, stepping from her seat and kissing Nora on her forehead sweetly. Curie never needed to eat, she was here purely to remain spending time with her love.

Nora maintained her grin. “Come on, hon. If I destroyed the Institute and didn’t become an evil harbinger of death, I don’t think forging an alliance when both sides don’t like me will do much for my ego,” she joked, mixing the broth and trying to make it palatable. The taste was a luxury in the food of the Commonwealth, and mostly everything tasted like dust from the radiation.

Curie remained to loom over her, hand on her hip and silently judging her lover. “Oh no, but you’ll be experiencing the heightened elation and the hormonal effects of your pride for weeks my love, and it will be me who is patching you up, again I might add, when a Mutant gets lucky and sockets a shot in your torso,” the Synth continued to tease, straddling Nora and sitting in her lap, arms snaking around her neck sensually. “Aren’t you so lucky my database has such an extensive and intuitive record of human anatomy? And that my hands are still so very good in this form…”

The flirting made Nora pause and blush profusely as she felt Curie straddling her. “Never known a Miss Nanny to be so forward before…” She joked a little more, hands coming to Curie’s waist before they locked eyes and gazed at each other.

“Please stop talking for a moment, my dear…” Curie lulled to her.

They leaned in together and their lips met beautifully, locking them in a euphoric and close, passionate kiss, enveloping them in the warmth of the fire as the sparks flew out between them. Nora adored the kisses they shared, and Curie, surprisingly, had a technique that was impeccable. Even the taste of her synthetic lips was lush, gorgeous to take in, and her tongue began to explore in the cornucopia of Nora’s loving mouth. Curie’s hands came to cup Nora’s cheeks as their kissing deepened and her tongue encroached more and more into her lover’s mouth. Nora tasted perfect, still holding some semblance of the taste and texture of her age. She was supremely less irradiated than the rest of the human population, and somehow that was telling in how her lips and mouth felt to the taste the more Curie lavished her with kisses.

It lasted for some time, as the two held each other close with the stew bubbling. But after a while, the heavy footsteps of Power Armour came beating close to them, with a quieter and softer pair near them. Danse and Preston, Nora knew.

“Well it was fun while it lasted,” she mused, ceasing the kissing of her love and leaning back in the chair to face Preston and Danse. “We have an update, gentlemen?” She asked them, Preston looking grave indeed holding his laser musket.

Danse considered her nonchalant take on the situation and judged her a little. He was still scorned over the Prydwen too somewhat, but his disdain was far less for her than the rest of his retinue. They were here for the Mutants and nothing more.

“We need to talk, Commander…” Danse asked of her.

“What do you mean we don’t have enough troops?” Nora barked at Danse once they were inside the main command tent.

The floorplan of the whole fort was laid out on the makeshift table in the middle, pinned into the withered plywood with combat knives. Preston was sat down in a folding chair and leaning over the bracketed barrel of his laser musket, dreading the current discussion. He’d only brought a handful of Minutemen from The Fort due to their numbers and the safety requirements of the settlement. Reconstruction of the main walls was still underway and the organisation needed all the hands it could find. It had meant the majority of the Minutemen Expeditionary Force had to remain in garrison at the base until the walls were finished and the defences were up to snuff. With the news Danse had, he was only thinking that the twelve men and women he had brought across the Commonwealth were about to die.

Danse was standing in place, conserving the energy in his fusion core and not taking the tent apart by lumbering around. Why he didn’t just exit the frame was beyond both Nora and Preston.

“I mean the Mutants have been fortifying and bolstering their numbers. I’ve never seen so many crawling over one encampment since seeing the Capital Building in the Capital Wasteland. My scouts estimate there could be up to fifty or sixty of them inside of Fort Hagen,” Danse reported, pointing along the main defensive wall and inside the main and underground compound for where their numbers were situated.

“How did your scouts get in and out without being spotted by the Muties?” Preston asked, leaning over his laser musket.

“They used Stealth Boys and slipped inside via the underground complex that Nora provided from her pursuit of Kellogg,” he shot back like a soldier. Even after the conflict with Maxson, Danse was still fanatically devoted to the cause and to his Brotherhood of Steel. It was disheartening to Nora to witness. Maxson hated Danse so profusely.

“There’s no way they’re gathering for a party without any booze. There’s gotta be something in there they want to protect. Otherwise, they’d scatter when they saw us making a camp. I’ve been around these bastards long enough to know their tricks when I try to face them. The Muties have something this time. Something worth assembling for,” Nora theorised aloud, bring Preston to stand, setting his musket on the chair and leaning over the map.

The three of them observed it together, judging what and where it might be and be stored. Danse had enough knowledge of the Super Mutants and their origin from the Brotherhood of Steel’s doctrine - it taught all Scribes, Knights and Paladins about the Super Mutants and where they came from. Mariposa Military Base in what was now the New California Republic, that was where Danse said they came from, created by something that was developed before the bombs fell. He recounted when the organisation known as the Enclave sought to use what made them against them, against all of the remains of the US. The Forced Evolution Virus, or FEV, Danse called it.

“It is possible that the Muties could have a strain of the FEV with them? It would explain why so many of them would be gathered in one place like this,” Preston inquired to Danse, trying to think of all options surrounding them. Nora remained quiet as she thought about things. Curie entered the tent upon her request when Danse talked about the FEV, and this whole time the Synth had been searching her internal memory in the corner, bringing it up on a terminal to find any reference Vault-Tec would have installed within her when she was a Mis Nanny about the FEV.

Danse observed the floorplan of the Fort. “I’ve never known the Mutants to be so well versed in science to recreate the original FEV from Mariposa, so I wouldn’t say that would be a viable possibility, Garvey,” he replied, judging again where anything could be stored inside the fortress.

Nora stepped forward now and looked to Danse. “Do you suppose it’s possible they have some of the original strain from the Mariposa Base? And that they’re trying to somehow use it to develop more?” She asked the Paladin, looking to Preston afterwards as he considered. “An army of Super Mutants could completely overrun the entire Commonwealth now that the Institute and the Brotherhood are both gone,” she told the Minuteman General. Danse seethed.

“If they do it’ll now be completely on your head, you know,” he reminded her, and Preston was certainly not willing to challenge that observation. She’d taken them both out. Now the Mutants threatened the world her choices had created. “If they overrun the Commonwealth, and if they have the FEV again. They’ll have an army that will completely overrun the Capital Wasteland, and once they win there, the NCR will be sitting ducks compared a full-scale Super Mutant attack,” Danse explained further. Nora felt herself go white.

Preston finally said something. “Wow, Danse, lay off her a little. There was no way anyone was supposed to know this could happen. The Mutants haven’t been a threat until now, the Institute needed to be dealt with. And Brotherhood was just as threatening,” he told the Synth.

“And yet here we are now, requiring both of their strength of advert a disaster. How ironic, don’t you both think?” He sneered at Preston as he paced back and forth. “The Mutants could have the FEV,” he finally confessed, feeling dread in his stomach, and scorned pride on behalf of the Brotherhood now. “They either have it from the original vats that were at Mariposa before the Brotherhood blew it up, or they have developed a new strain thanks to outside help - they’re not intelligent enough to develop it from scratch themselves.”

“You’re sure of that?” Nora asked him, trying to be thorough.

“It’s been over forty years since the destruction of the Enclave and they were the last group possible to have had the knowledge and resources to work with the original strain to develop a new one,” Danse answered, but froze when Curie gasped and stood up from the portable terminal in the back of the room.

Her feminine gasp was extremely audible it made both men jump and freeze and startled Nora into thinking her lover was in pain. “Sacre bleu!” Curie yelled.

“What is it, honey?” Nora asked her dear, holding her arms as the Synth recovered from the shocking revelation stored in her memory banks.

She shook her head and recalled the information rapidly. “When we were inside the Institute, you had me download a complete array of their experiments history to my core memory files from Father’s terminal, do you remember, dear?” She asked of Nora, still shocked and now stressing under the crushing weight of the memory. Nora nodded her head and Preston and Danse reeled in dread as they realised the Institute had been involved. Their worst fears had been realised. “In March of 2224, the Institute developed two promising strains of the Forced Evolution Virus and committed a sample of each to cold storage in Fort Hagen while the scoured the Commonwealth for test subjects! Cherie, it is inside the Fort and the Super Mutants have their hands on it!” She cried.

Nora held her closely and turned to Danse directly after. “Assemble your troops, we have to go in right now. They have the FEV, Danse, and I’m not letting them take advantage of my decisions to roll over the people of the Commonwealth. Over my dead body,” she intimidated the Synth and held Curie close.

Danse nodded and set off out of the tent. Preston grabbed his laser musket. “I’ll assemble what Minutemen we have and get them into sniping positions. If we’re assaulting the Fort we’ll need them as well as any explosives,” he told Nora.

“Get guns in their hands and get them ready as soon as you can, Preston, we need to go in.”

“Forward! Keep up the pressure on the high wall!” Nora called out as the Knights and Paladins pushed up as hard as they could, each taking hails of bullets to their armoured hides. All were outfitted in hulking fortress power armour, each helmeted to cover all of their bodies from the bullets of the Super Mutants. The battle for Fort Hagen had begun and they were the fodder, pushing themselves against the wall of it to distract the main fire of the Muties. Meanwhile, from the treeline between the fort and the main encampment, Preston headed his platoon of Minutemen with scoped laser muskets all eying the lines of green monstrosities, dropping them with quick and surgical lasers for maximum damage. Preston even pulled his scope to his eye and dropped one of the marauding Mutants as it headed for Nora with a bladed board. While the hulking Mutants had inferior weaponry, mostly consisting of boards, pip rifles and the odd laser weapon, their numbers almost doubled that of the allied forces. Without Nora, Danse and Curie in the field with the rest of the soldiers, they wouldn’t last long. Nora’s tactics and battle plan to have the Minutemen covering and providing sniper support for the assaulting Knights and Paladins was genius, far too complex for the Super Mutants. It was splitting their ranks down the middle and confusing them in the battle. Brotherhood Knights with super sledges and other melee weapons clashed with the hulking Mutants on the ground as many of those above the barricade with their inferior rifles became confused between the gunfire from the back rows of the vanguard and the snipers in the trees.

Nora pressed up with Curie behind her, laser rifle in the Synths hand as her lover used her fully automatic combat rifle, firing high powered and heavy weighted rounds through the thick masses of meat that were the bodies of the Super Mutants.

The two remained close, covering the other. Nora kept her fire on the high wall, trying to take the pressure off of the Brotherhood of Steel soldiers, a few of them began to fall, their power armour becoming hulks of occasional cover as they died. Danse lead a small band of his brothers and sisters up to the wall and took cover below the shooters, firing their laser rifles up and through the wooden barricade the Mutants had built and setting them aflame with their incendiary capacitors. The Mutants burned superfluously and cried out in fits of rage as their bodies scorched and melted as their fought. Plenty of them fell down dead on the wall and on the battlefield.

Two frenzies Mutants with heavy boards covered in spikes came charging for Nora, catching her off guard in her Vault 88 Jumpsuit and a full array of studded leather armour. Before they could take a swing at her their heads suddenly erupted into fountains of red and their brains utterly detonated in small explosions of blood and gore. Curie had dead-eyed them both in their heads and they had died in a violent mess. They were no match for Curie’s robotic and therefore flawless aim and her lethal tenacity to protect her life partner.

Nora turned to her love and smiled in the brief second she could before hearing more Mutants surrounding them. She aimed her combat rifle around at the swath left and laid waste into them with bullets, ripping through their green-coloured hide.

Mutant Dogs came barking around from the entrance to the Fort. From the forest came the secondary force of the Minutemen, relinquishing their sniper support and entering the main battle, blasting the last of the outer defensive Mutants and ripping through the dogs. In seconds the first phase of the battle was over and Danse, Preston and Nora regrouped.

“Well there’s the easy bit down, how many casualties, gentlemen?” Nora asked.

“About ten or so of my people are down, but we’re still raging to kick some Mutant ass inside,” Danse reported to her, looking around at the lifeless hulks of power armour but then back to the rest of those still living and their unkillable fervour for Mutant blood.

“The Muties got lucky and killed Abernathy and Meyers, bastards,” Preston cursed, spitting the floor.

Nora places her hand on Preston’s shoulder. “Keep your guys out here, for now, to get this place locked down. Come with me and Danse as we secure the inside. Your guys ready, Danse?” Nora checked with the hardy Paladin. For once he was wearing his T-60 Power Armour Helmet and his voice was covered in the tang of metal.

“Let’s do this,” he told her plainly and returned to his soldiers to rally them.

“You comfortable coming in with us? We could use your aim,” Nora asked of Preston. He chuckled to himself.

Preston looked to Curie. “With her around, Commander, you don’t need any more aim. Curie’s good with a laser rifle, real good.” He continued smiling and wandered off to relay the orders to the rest of the gathered Minutemen as they mourned the two dead ones. Nora walked to her love and roped her combat rifle around her and let it go.

They embraced passionately and Curie kissed Nora deeply, hands cupping her warm cheeks. They hadn’t seen a battle like this in the Commonwealth in many months, not since the assault on the C. I. T. This was hell on Earth again and Nora felt a little guilty for asking her life partner to join her against the Mutants. But Curie knew exactly what they were looking for and she was equipped to deal with it properly. The FEV was going to be exceptionally deadly to any who came in close contact to it. It would be down to Curie and Danse to go and collect it and seal it inside a contamination box to ship it back with the Brotherhood of Steel.

Nora kissed her Curie back just as deeply, the guilt pulling on her heart, but if it were not for the Synth she’d have been harrowingly injured at this point. “Thank you for saving me, hon,” she thanked her love, and Curie moaned a deep ‘no, no, no’ as she pulled Nora back in for another deep and loving kiss. The battle had spurred her and now all she wanted was Nora some more before they advanced into the Fort. Nora held Curie’s hands as she cupped her face so desperately and eventually brought them down. More kissing pecks ensued.

“Okay, after this we’re going back to that little cabin in the hills and I’m going to love you so damn hard, no one’s gonna stop me,” she teased, kissing Curie again deeper still.

“I would like that very much, indeed I think,” Curie agreed, smiling and giggling as she said it.

Another peck and Nora smiled deeply. “Ready to take on what’s inside?” She asked her partner, and Curie nodded with a hum. Danse and Preston were already waiting when they joined them, stacked up against the high wall. There were no signs of any more Mutant resistance coming to take them on. The rest of the forces must have been inside with the strains of the FEV. Now all they had to do was get to them, and let Curie and Danse to the rest. Nora addressed the gathered incursion team consisting of almost twenty Brotherhood of Steel Knights and Paladins with laser rifles. “Alright people. We have information that suggests the Muties have two strains of the Forced Evolution Virus developed by the Institute deep within the Fort. We’ll take the back entrance I took after killing Kellogg and secure the FEV. Kill any Muties in our way, once we have the virus, they’ll disperse,” she told them all, really exhuming her commanding presence.

“And if they don’t?” One Knight asked.

“If they don’t disperse once we have the FEV in hand,” Danse chuckled a little. “Then we’ll eradicate them on our way out,” he instructed, taking the reins. Preston remained silent for this, they weren’t his people. “This is our last mission in the Commonwealth. After this, we’re heading back to the Capital Wasteland. So let’s not mock this up, people.”

Nora spoke to them again, pulling out her combat rifle. “The FEV leaves here with you guys. The Brotherhood knows how best to dispose of it and the Muties. So like Danse said, let’s not mock this up. Good hunting!” She cheered for them, trying to appeal to them as a fighter and not the woman who blew up their airship.

To her surprise, they were drinking it. “Hoorah!”

The back entrance was swarming with the Mutants in a confined space as soon as they dispersed from the elevators. Two carts - one carrying Nora, Danse, Preston and Curie all confined together. Preston and Nora had quickly changed into their hazmat suits upon Danse’s request to limit any contamination to their bodies from the FEV. The rest of the Brotherhood fighters would be protected in their Power Armour, and Curie was a Synth, she couldn’t be mutated and her body could not evolve organically. She was completely safe aside from the bullets.

The second elevator carried the first trio of Knights, each time zipping up and down to ferry more soldiers from the topside to join the small fight. It was a service corridor and the Mutants had had more than enough time to prepare defences for the invaders. Nora and Curie found cover behind a group of barrels quickly and crouched, leaning over to fire. Nora had also elected to use a laser rifle now, an excited capacitor with a focusing gyroscope barrel and a short stock for close quarters combat. Curie leaned over the barrels and domed a Super Mutant coming for them with a minigun. He fell to the ground and his body disintegrated into red and flamey ashes. Preston stayed behind close to the elevator and sniped what he could see from the orbish helmet of his hazmat suit.

A Paladin approached him as she exited the elevator. “FEV detection levels are present! It’s definitely here!” She told him and moved quickly into battle after referring to her detector around her gauntlet.

“Commander!” Preston called to Nora down the corridor, running and sliding behind cover closer to her and Curie as the latter provided covering fire with her laser rifle. More and more Mutants lost their heads to her impressive aim and incredible damage. “The FEV is here! And we’re close! Detection levels are rising!” Preston cried at her. Nora lifted her thumb up at him to tell him she heard. Then Nora looked at Danse through her helmet.

“Danse! We need to push up before they get us pinned down!” She ordered, reeling over the barrels and laying down her own suppressing fire, eyeing several Mutants and blasting them with repeating laser blast as Curie picked them off lethally.

As the two women carved a swath with the left flank of the Mutants, with more and more running to bolster their numbers, Danse tossed a pulse grenade into the mix of them, blowing them wide open and blasting limbs all over the service corridor, painting it in thick blood. “Shield! Now! Move up, on my command!” Danse called back to his Brotherhood forces as the Mutants recalibrated themselves and got back into the fight. Three Paladins came running to Danse with a massive plate, a bulkhead from the remains of the Prydwen, bringing it to him and setting it in front of him as a barrier. It was thick and hardy, entirely of hard steel and enough to serve as a bulwark against the bullets from the Mutants. Nora, Curie and Preston all formed up with Danse behind the bulkhead shield. They were unstoppable and Nora even laughed audibly.

Preston, breathing harshly, was shocked. “Really? You’re enjoying this?” He asked her incredulously as the sound of a hail fire of bullets clashed against the thick shield. The rest of the Brotherhood back lines rained down laser on them as they were distracted.

Curie was smiling. “She often enjoys times like these, it is most perplexing, even to me!” She answered Preston.

Nora careened up and lasered a Mutant around the side of the shield. “Are you both kidding me? This is awesome!” She cried, laughing a little more and shooting another burst before taking cover again.

Danse sighed. “Paladins! Push!” He called out and the forces lifted and pushed the shield forward little by little, the rest of the squad moving up with it. The back ranks of the soldiers maintaining the suppressing fire. They encroached slowly into the territory of the corridor the Mutants held, Curie dead-eying those she found through the short scope of her laser rifle until more lay dead and headless. Her aim truly was incredible even Preston could not keep up with her standards. Nora chewed up more and more with her rapid firing laser rifle.

Soon thereafter they made it to the turning point that led to the main contaminant room through a double doorway. The Mutants were dug in deeply but there were only a few left. More were coming, however, Nora was sure of it as soon as she saw the ten or so gathered around a single clinical crate in the middle of the turned up room. That had to be containing the vials of the FEV, she knew it. Judging her options carefully, and knowing a fragmentation grenade, or any explosive device that was too lethal would blow the crate along with the Mutants, and the virus would be spread all across the room. It would be airborne within seconds of being released. She grabbed a cryo grenade from her belt pouch and primed it, tossing it in front of the Mutant line and praying that it didn’t somehow blow the crate. The flurry of ice upon the explosion froze the Mutants solid where they stood for moments, at which point all of the invaders leaned out from cover and lit them up with an all-out assault of laser fire, ripping them and disintegrating them to shreds and ash. There were only three left in seconds.

“Danse, move up, carefully, I have an idea,” she called to him across the open door.

“I better not get killed, Commander,” he warned her, looking less than enthusiastic about her idea.

Nora switched from her laser rifle to her double barrel shotgun and loaded it ready, keeping the third shell in her hand ready. “Don’t worry, Danse, you’ll be fine. I’ll protect you…” she teased, ready to enter the fray. Danse scoffed and stepped out in front of the open door, firing excessive blasts into the room as the Mutants covered themselves. Nora fell in behind him and held his back.

When the time came, she knocked his helmet. “Find me a target,” she told him and Danse moved up slowly to one of the Mutants covered by a desk. When he got to him, shooting at the other two so they wouldn’t get the jump on him he called back behind him.

“Right side, right in front,” Danse told her and she peeked out, finding the Super Mutant’s head. With a single blast from the shotgun, his face detonated and exploded into the blood. He fell limp and headless as Danse moved on, closer to the next one of the other side of the room behind a medical cart. Once they reached him, Danse called out left and Nora responded with another explosive shell to his face, massacring him. Quickly she reloaded the final shell into the chamber as Danse got her to the final Mutant and when they arrived he moved away from her, letting her fully see her final victim. Both Nora and the Mutant locked eyes and he knew he was dead before he could see the buckshot coming to rip through his head.

The room was secure. “Curie!” Nora called out and the pretty Synth came running in with the rest of the containment team. Preston remained outside as the FEV freaked him out enough. Danse cleared the bodies away from the crate and looked over it with Curie.

“No breaches, and it’s definitely inside. Both strains,” Curie reported after peeking inside and then sealing it again. They got it. They secured the FEV.

“Danse, get it out of here, it’s all yours,” Nora told him, stowing away her shotgun and leaving the room with Curie and Preston following her. She took the risk and removed her hazmat helmet once they were inside the elevator. It was all in a day's work.

Preston removed his and sighed a sigh of relief as Nora and Curie gave each other another adorable kiss. The mission was concluded and now it was time to relax and shed the stresses of such a time-sensitive mission. The Mutants would scatter and either get mowed down by the Brotherhood as they chased them out of the Commonwealth. Now that the threat was over, all Nora wanted was Curie close to her, either clothed or naked and in their secret cabin so she could kiss her body all over. All Preston wanted now was to be back in his shack in Sanctuary, popping a smoke, drinking some of his iced Nuka-Cherry and listening to Radio Freedom in peace before the next crisis. With the Institute blown up, the Brotherhood pulling out, the Mutants now dealt with, he wondered what could be next on their hit list.

“So, who’s gonna be next for us to take down a notch?” He asked Nora as she held Curie close.

“Huh?” She asked back.

“You nuked the Institute, blew up the Prydwen, and now eradicated the Super Mutants. Who the hell is there left for you to conquer?” He inquired, making Nora think now just how much of a destructive path she had carved for herself after getting out of Vault 111. Who was left to challenge her era of peace? She’d neutered the Commonwealth and brokered a peace within it.

She contemplated it for a moment, and hummed, passively with a shrug. “Who knows, Preston. Whoever tries to mess with me and my life… If anyone wants to, they can try.”

Preston chuckled. “I’ll tell them to take a look at who tried to mess with you before them. I’m sure they’ll think twice when they see the scorch marks.”

Nora and Curie locked eyes again, and shared one more deep and loving kiss, celebrating a successful mission together once again. They couldn’t wait to get to the cabin, for another night of solitude and intimacy.


End file.
